How Much to Tip: Every Service, Every Situation

Tipping · The master guide · Updated 2026-08-07

For sit-down restaurant service in the United States, 15-20% of the bill is customary, and 18-20% is increasingly treated as the standard for good service. Almost every other tipped service falls into a range you can memorize in a minute: a dollar or two per drink at the bar, 15-20% for delivery and personal care, a few dollars per night for hotel housekeeping. This page collects all of those numbers in one place.

Tipping in America is a custom, not a law, which is exactly why it generates so much anxiety: nobody hands you the rulebook. Below you will find the master table for every common service, the reasoning behind the norms, what to do when service goes wrong, whether cash beats card, and the mental math for working any of it out without a phone.

The quick answer

If you only remember one number, make it 20%. Twenty percent of the bill is a safe, generous-but-normal tip for nearly every full-service situation in the US: restaurants with table service, bar tabs, hair and nail salons, spas, tattoo studios, and food delivery. For quick services, think in dollars instead of percentages: $1-2 per drink or per bag, and $2-5 for a valet or a night of housekeeping. Counter service and takeout are the big exception - tipping there is optional, and 0-10% is entirely within custom.

Everything else is a refinement of those two ideas. The table below is the full reference, and the rest of this guide covers the judgment calls the table cannot make for you. For a lookup version organized by bill amount, see the tip chart.

Why tipping norms exist

American tipping customs grew up around full service, and the custom treats the tip as part of what that service costs rather than as a bonus for excellence. That is why the ranges hold steady even on an ordinary night: leaving the customary percentage is doing what the arrangement assumes, not rewarding a standout performance. It is also why the numbers are stable across a whole category of work instead of being negotiated bill by bill, which is exactly what makes them worth memorizing.

None of this makes tipping a legal obligation. It is a custom, and customs flex: they vary by region, by service, and over time. What the custom does is set expectations on both sides of the transaction, so the useful question is rarely whether to tip but how much, and the ranges in the table above are the answer most Americans would recognize.

Restaurants: the 15-20% rule in practice

For table service, 15-20% is customary and 18-20% is increasingly the standard for good service. Reserve 15% for service that was merely adequate, and 22-25% for service that was genuinely exceptional: a server who handled allergies gracefully, split a complicated check without blinking, or turned a rough night around. The traditional convention is to tip on the pre-tax amount, though many people tip on the total for simplicity; the difference is small, and the full trade-offs are covered in pre-tax or total.

Two special cases trip people up. First, on a discounted bill - a coupon, a gift card, a comped appetizer - the custom is to tip on the original, pre-discount amount, because the server did the same work either way. Second, many restaurants add an automatic gratuity of 18-20% for large parties, often at six or eight guests and up. If it is disclosed on the menu you are generally expected to pay it; you may add extra on top but are not obliged to. Why a service charge is legally not a tip at all is its own topic, covered in automatic gratuity rules.

Beyond the dining room

• Bars: $1-2 per drink when paying round by round, or 15-20% on the tab when you close out. A labor-intensive cocktail earns the high end; a bottled beer, the low end.
• Delivery: 15-20% with a practical minimum of $3-5, and more in bad weather - the driver crossing town in a storm is doing harder work, not cheaper work. Fees on the receipt are separate from the tip, so add the tip yourself rather than assuming a fee covers it. The full breakdown lives in delivery and takeout tipping.
• Rideshare and taxi: 10-20% of the fare, nudged up for luggage help, extra stops, or a driver who got you there through a mess.
• Personal care: hair, nails, spa, massage, and tattoo work all sit at 15-20%. These are skilled, physical, one-on-one services, and regulars who tip well tend to get the appointment times they want.
• Hotels: $2-5 per night for housekeeping, left daily in cash because the person cleaning your room may change from day to day; $1-2 per bag for a bellhop; $2-5 for the valet at pickup.
• Movers: commonly $20-40 per mover for a day of work, handed to each person individually if you can manage it.
• Baristas and counter jars: entirely optional. Tip when someone remembers your order or handles a big round, and skip it without guilt otherwise.
• Traveling? These are US norms and they do not export. In much of continental Europe service is included in the bill, and in Japan a tip can cause outright confusion - see tipping etiquette by country before you fly.

When the service was bad

1. Separate the kitchen from the person in front of you: A wrong dish, a long ticket time, or a cold entree is usually a kitchen problem, and cutting the server's tip punishes the wrong person. The same logic protects drivers: never zero out a delivery driver because the restaurant forgot the fries. The driver's job was the drive, and the drive happened.
2. Lower within reason instead of going to zero: For service that was genuinely poor - inattentive, rude, absent for long stretches - dropping from 20% to the 15% low end of the customary range sends a message while acknowledging that the work still happened. A zero tip on table service reads less like feedback and more like a walkout, and it mostly guarantees that nobody learns anything.
3. Say something to a manager: If the experience was bad enough that you are tempted to leave nothing, it is bad enough to mention to a manager, who is the one person who can actually fix it. A calm sentence on the way out does more than a blank tip line ever will.
4. Tip generously when someone fixes it: A server who catches a mistake and makes it right has done the hardest part of the job well. That recovery is exactly what the 22-25% end of the range is for.

Cash or card?

Both are normal, and either beats not tipping. Cash arrives instantly, in full, and unambiguously in the hands of the person who served you, which is why it is the strong preference for hotel housekeeping, valets, bellhops, and movers - services where there is no receipt to write on. Card tips are perfectly acceptable at restaurants, salons, and in delivery apps, and they are the natural choice when you are already paying the bill by card.

If you want a middle path, pay the bill by card and leave the tip in cash on the table. Whichever you choose, write the numbers clearly and add the total yourself - the figure you sign for is the one that gets charged.

The mental math, in one minute

You never need a calculator for a standard tip; two moves cover everything. Start from 10%: move the decimal one place left. Then build: 20% is 10% doubled, 15% is 10% plus half of 10%, 18% is 20% minus a tenth of the 20% figure, and 5% is half of 10%.

Take a $63.40 check. Ten percent is $6.34. Double it for 20%: $12.68. For 15%, add half of $6.34, which is $3.17, to get $9.51. For 18%, take a tenth off the 20% figure: $12.68 minus $1.27 is $11.41. Each result lands on the true percentage rounded to the cent.

The fuller technique, with more percentages and rounding shortcuts, is in tip math without a calculator. And when the check is shared, remember that a naive even split can lose or invent cents; how to split a bill shows the fair way to hand out the leftover pennies.

Let the math be the easy part. Tip Calculator₊ by Panda Taps handles the arithmetic this guide leaves you with: pick a percentage or a rounding mode, split evenly or unevenly by person, and the per-person shares always add up to the exact total, with the odd cent shown instead of silently dropped. It works in 28 currencies, fully offline, on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Coming soon to the App Store. Learn more about Tip Calculator₊.

Frequently asked questions

Is 15% still an acceptable restaurant tip?

Yes, 15-20% remains the customary range for sit-down service in the US. In practice 18-20% is increasingly treated as the standard for good service, so 15% now reads as a tip for service that was merely adequate.

Do I tip on the pre-tax amount or the total?

The traditional convention is to tip on the pre-tax amount, though many people tip on the total for simplicity. The difference is small: a 20% tip on a $50 bill with 8% tax is $10.00 pre-tax versus $10.80 post-tax.

Do I have to tip for takeout or counter service?

No. Tipping for counter service and takeout is optional, and 0-10% is entirely within custom. Many people tip a small amount for large or complicated orders and skip it otherwise.

Is it ever acceptable to leave no tip?

For counter service, takeout, and coffee shops, yes, because tipping there is optional. For full table service, the accepted response to poor service is to lower the tip within reason and speak to a manager rather than leave nothing, and a delivery driver should never lose a tip over kitchen mistakes.

Keep reading

• Tip Chart: 15%, 18%, 20% and 25% on Any Bill
• Tipping Etiquette by Country: Who Tips, Who Does Not
• Tipping for Delivery and Takeout: What Is Fair